The Biggest Rat in South Florida
The Biggest Rat in South Florida After doing time on drug charges in the United States, Mario Adamo was deported back to his native country Italy where he was facing more charges and and decades in prison. In exchange for his cooperation with the DEA, the U.S. government sponsored Adamo's application for U.S. residency in the 1990's and paid him over $200,000 for his services as an informant for more than 50 cases that he worked on. One of his most high profile cases began sometime in July of 1994 where he targeted Paul Sanzaro who was known to have ties with the New Jersey DeCavalcante crime family along with deep ties to some of South Florida's most notorious organized crime figures. Sanzaro who at the time owed the famous Hemingway's restaurant in Hollywood Florida was in serious financial trouble and was soon going to lose the restaurant. In an attempt to prevent bankruptcy, Sanzaro reached out to members of the Colombo family, one of five South Florida's organized crime families. In exchange for getting him out of debt, Sanzaro relinquished most of his ownership to the Colombo family. The Colombo family used the restaurant as a legitimate front and a place to conduct business but did not know what Sanzaro was doing behind their back. While working as an undercover informant with the DEA, Mario Adamo approached Sanzaro and asked him if he could obtain large quantities of cocaine. Sanzaro informed Adamo that he was close friends with organized crime associate Anthony Caucci Sr and had first hand knowledge that his son Anthony R.Caucci (who had strong ties to all five Italian organized crime families as well as the Columbian Cartel) had access to multi-hundred kilogram loads of cocaine. Subsequently, Sanzaro was able to introduce Adamo to Caucci in order discuss the possibility of purchasing hundreds of kilos on a monthly basis. After the first meeting, Caucci decided that it would be better to deal directly with Sanzaro since he did not know Adamo. After months of negotiating terms, Anthony Caucci along with members of the Cali cartel made a deal with Sanzaro for 50 kilos of cocaine. To start, Sanzaro was given seven kilos of cocaine and it was agreed that once it was sold he would then get the remainder. During the transaction between Sanzaro and undercover informant Adamo, Sanzaro was ripped off for the seven kilos. During a recording conversation between Caucci and an unknown person in Columbia it was revealed that Caucci put a contract out to kill Sanzaro. The FBI immediately informed Sanzaro that his life was in danger. Sanzaro then fled to his hometown in New Jersey in order to evade the hit. Then in 2012, 17 years later Sanzaro had enough of being on the run and turned himself in to the authorities. Due to the cooperation of Mario Adamo in this case, over ten people went to prison, the Colombo family was not able to conduct business out of Hemingways and over a dozen other cases were open. Category:Organized crime